I went to a lecture last night about tall buildings and one of the guest speakers was an architect from Renzo Piano. He said that when they first took on the "shard" they were asked to look at a 400m tower and some preliminary sketches were shown of this. It looked similar to the existing design but instead of a tapering on all sides it had a vertical elevation with the other elevations tapering away. It also had a pronounced diagonal slash midway up that broke the elevation and inspiration for the design came from sail boats. I’ve done a render as best I could remember showing how the taller version looked compared to the approved design, I prefer the existing design. Apologies if this is common knowledge but I never knew this before.


The 400m design.
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/5825/400m7vw.jpg


Existing design.
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/1935/300m8vl.jpg

i know it was, they continued with the same sort of height that broadway malyan originally worked on. pity though, 400m would have been amazing. thanks for the image :)

I never knew that...

Would have been cool, But i love the current design!

It was something like this wasn't it?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1865000/images/_1868426_artistlondonbridgetower300.jpg

Before that it was that god awful cylindrical tower with a red and white spire. Eeek that would have set skyscrapers back in London by a few years.

I'm happy with what we've got to be honest. If we ever get it that is.

There were a lot of studies much like the one you've shown here but the 400m one seemed slimmer as I suppose you would expect with another 100m of height on top of a similar footprint.

I thought everyone knew this.

http://194.185.232.3/works/062/pictures/18big.jpg

Look at the fucking size of it :eek: But i'm glad we kinda got cutdown to 300m because we can't jump from 235m straight to 400 :D

About The Shard, when it goes up hopefully later 2006/2007 will the smaller building go up to?

that top picture looks like it has melted in the sun

Look at the fucking size of it :eek: But i'm glad we kinda got cutdown to 300m because we can't jump from 235m straight to 400 :D

About The Shard, when it goes up hopefully later 2006/2007 will the smaller building go up to?

Paris is jumping from like 200m to 400m in a few years...

I'm glad we didn't get this design.
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/622/490lbt3a.jpg

I prefer the height and design of the current design :)

I thought everyone knew this.

Yeah thanks Johnny thats what it did look like in the lecture last night. I didn't know this before but I guess its interesting to see how it would have looked as opposed to the final design we are hopefully getting. Imagine if this this and the Millenium tower facing it over across the river had both been built....holy crap! :runaway:

yeah, and then throw in calatravas citypoint and the current bishopsgate tower!

I prefer the current design although the size of the initial design is interesting

I think the design of the nitial looks quite cool, but im not complaining about what weve got

300m is better than than 400m In my opinion, A lot more consistant and refined than the taller version, which looks like its going to fall.. :S

400m is too tall for London at present, the 300m current design is unbeatable, besides the 400m would never have got PP

I went to that lecture aswell! Ian simpson was also one of the speakers and *hinted* that he is eager to push the height of Criterion Place in Leeds even higher to create a more elegant form.

There was also the token "Greenie" who looked rather foolish when he based his lecture around the poor sustainability of skyscrapers moments after the Renzo guy had talked about LBT sustainable credentials. He looked even more foolish when he went on to argue that we shouldnt build up our city cores!

Where was this lecture and who organised it?

^^ you sound like an interogator

The lecture was at the showroom cinema in Sheffield (my fav building in sheffield btw!). It was actually the second in a series of debates concerning the way Sheffield was developing. It was entitled "Tall Buildings - Icon or Eyesore?" and was arranged in light of the fierce debate over the recently approved 32 storey tower in Sheffield.

At one point Ian Simpson was asked by someone from the planning board how he felt we should be developing tall buildings for the city. He basically replyed by saying 20 storey buildings cant be elegant and that we should be building to much higher quality than what is currently being churned out in the city. (To be honest he had a point!)

However I couldnt help but laugh when he mentioned that british cities should be carving their own identities when his architectural style seems to change little reguardless of where the scheme is being built! (i.e. Brunswick Quay in Liverpool vs the more or less identical 50 storey tower in Newcastle!)

I really like this 400m design, the previous cylinder was just horrible. I think this would look good built next to the current proposal for LBT

It was 390m to my knowledge.

^Your thinking of the Broadway Malyan design.

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=17842&papass=&sort=1

Dunno about anyone else but I have always been completely indifferent to this London Bridge Tower scheme - of everything I have come across in recent years, this scheme - despite being the tallest of the lot - just gets me thinking "ho hum" - I don't find it (the design[s]) particularly exciting or revolutionary even if it IS a pyramid shape ripped off the San Francisco TransAmerica building. It just leaves me cold.

slap ... but the Pinnacle is sublime! ... slap

Dunno about anyone else but I have always been completely indifferent to this London Bridge Tower scheme - of everything I have come across in recent years, this scheme - despite being the tallest of the lot - just gets me thinking "ho hum" - I don't find it (the design[s]) particularly exciting or revolutionary even if it IS a pyramid shape ripped off the San Francisco TransAmerica building. It just leaves me cold.

martin have u been at the scrumpy again !!! take your cider visors off !!

Dunno about anyone else but I have always been completely indifferent to this London Bridge Tower scheme - of everything I have come across in recent years, this scheme - despite being the tallest of the lot - just gets me thinking "ho hum" - I don't find it (the design[s]) particularly exciting or revolutionary even if it IS a pyramid shape ripped off the San Francisco TransAmerica building. It just leaves me cold.

LBT is better than sex... how can anyone not like it??